A Child's Wish

by Tara Taylor Quinn

  “You, young lady, have no right to speak disrespectfully to me or to anyone else I bring into this house.”

  Kelsey stood resolute, her chin puckered with displeasure.

  “I asked you to apologize.”

  “No.”

  “Kelsey, Susan has been nothing but kind to you, taking you shopping for clothes, cooking for you, offering to help make your Easter dress. Inviting you to tea.”

  “She’s trying to be like my mother.”

  Susan shrank and Meredith’s heart ached for her friend. But her entire body was filled with Kelsey’s misery and she had no idea how to make any of it stop.

  “She’s not trying to be like your mother at all, Kelsey,” Mark said. “But she is trying to help, when your mother isn’t here to do so.”

  “I don’t need her help.”

  “Kelsey! I will not stand for this rudeness.”

  Kelsey stomped her foot. “And I won’t stand for you trying to make her into my mother!” she screamed. “She’s not my mother! She’s not! I hate her!” With one quick glance at Susan, accompanied by a sob, the little girl tore out of her father’s grasp and ran for the house.

  “Kelsey!” Mark started after her.

  “I’m going to go,” Susan said at the same time.

  “No, wait,” Mark turned back and then looked toward the house, his brows drawn.

  Meredith stood. “Mark, you stay with Susan. You’re too angry to give Kelsey what she needs right now. I’ll go to her.”

  His clenched lips relaxed after a long moment and he nodded, his shoulders dropping. “I don’t know what to do with her,” he said. “I never would have believed she could behave that way.”

  “She’s hurt,” Meredith said, worried about both Kelsey and her friend. Susan’s eyes were filled with tears. “And she’s scared.”

  And she might kick me out of her room, as well, Meredith thought as she headed into the house alone.

  MARK WAS SITTING by himself in the living room when Meredith came out of Kelsey’s room almost an hour later.

  “Where’s Susan?”

  “Gone. She didn’t want to be here if Kelsey came out. She said to have you call her in the morning.”

  Meredith couldn’t remember where she’d left her bag. “Did she go home?”

  He shook his head. “She was going to the hospital…Said something about a surgery she did today that she wanted to check on.”

  Work was Susan’s way of making sense out of life. Meredith understood that. And knew that her friend was exactly where she needed to be at the moment.

  “How is she?” He nodded toward an archway leading to the stairs.

  “Asleep.”

  Mark nodded and looked, she thought, relieved. Because his daughter was no longer suffering, or because it meant that he didn’t have to deal with her? Maybe a little of both.

  Meredith had to go—she was overwhelmed, exhausted, and not trusting herself to think clearly. But Mark looked so shaken and lost that she sat down on the edge of the chair opposite him. Just for a minute.

  “What did she say?”

  “Not much.”

  His eyes were weary as he looked at her, his body slouched in the corner of the couch. She wondered how long he’d been sitting there, doing nothing.

  “You were in there for almost an hour.”

  “I rubbed her back while she cried, and tried to get her to talk to me. She agreed to put on her pajamas and brush her teeth. It took us ten minutes to find Gilda. I listened to her prayers and sat with her until she fell asleep.”

  She hadn’t been able to leave the child until she was peaceful. And she’d wanted to give Susan and Mark some time alone.

  He shook his head. “I just don’t get it.”

  “She’s scared, Mark. I don’t know a lot about your wife, but my guess is that Kelsey suffered more at her hands than she lets on. The idea of introducing another woman into her life, aside from the fact that she has to share you, has got to be causing her some serious misgivings.”

  He nodded thoughtfully.

  “Barbie never raised a hand to her, if that’s what you’re thinking.”

  “I didn’t think she had,” Meredith said, choosing her words carefully. “But I wasn’t sure.”

  “What has Susan told you about her?”

  “Only that you came home from work one day and she was gone. And that Kelsey had afternoon kindergarten and was with you when you came in and found her missing.”

  “Barbie adored Kelsey,” he said, staring off into the middle of the room. “From the moment she found out she was pregnant, that child was the light in her life. She was more peaceful with Kelsey than I’d ever known her to be.”

  “She hadn’t been before?”

  “Barbie’s a sensitive woman—always was—which made her life kind of turbulent at times. Sometimes she’d get upset about the most inconsequential things. She’d storm and fume and then it would be over and she’d be fine. On the other side, however, even the smallest things could make her happy.”

  “How long were you married before she got pregnant?”

  “Four years.”

  “Did she have a career?”

  “She has a degree in journalism, and before Kelsey she was working at the Tulsa Times. She was still at a pretty junior level, writing obits and covering local events, but she’d had a couple of impressive bylines and was on her way up.”

  “Did she keep working after Kelsey was born?”

  “No.” He shook his head. “She’d intended to, but when the time came she couldn’t bear to leave the baby with a sitter.”

  “How did you feel about that?”

  He glanced over at her as though he’d just realized who she was—and that she was asking some fairly personal questions. Meredith was ready to leave.

  “I encouraged her to stay home,” he said then, with a discouraged shake of the head. “I was pretty much head over heels in love with the kid myself and wasn’t any more eager than Barbie was to hand her off to strangers when she was still too little to tell us how she was being treated.”

  “Did your wife miss journalism?”

  “That’s the damnedest part,” Mark said, sitting forward, rubbing his hands together. “She didn’t seem to at all. Those first four years with Kelsey she seemed so happy. Now that I look back on it, I can see signs that she struggled, too. I know I should’ve encouraged her to go back to work, but I sure didn’t see it at the time.”

  “Change is hard. She’d have struggled going back to work, Mark, even if that had been the right choice. But it doesn’t sound like it would have been.”

  “You don’t need to spare my feelings,” he said with a sad grin.

  “I’m not.”

  Mark watched her for a long minute and suddenly Meredith knew that something had changed. In him. In her. She had no idea. Was too emotionally drained to figure it out.

  “So what went wrong?”

  He didn’t answer right away, except to shrug. And then he said, “I can’t pinpoint anything that was wrong between us. I’ve tried until I drive myself crazy with it, but I can’t figure it out. The random outbursts grew more and more frequent and over the most innocuous stuff, and she just wasn’t happy anymore. With me, with herself, the house, this town… Anything.”

  “Except Kelsey.”

  “Except Kelsey. Until she started school. Then even Kelsey seemed to bring her sadness. Kelsey was off with others, didn’t need her as much. I think she felt abandoned.”

  “Most women go through something like that when their firstborn starts school.”

  “I know.” Mark grinned at her for real. “I’m in the business, too.”

  She’d forgotten. For a second there he’d just been a person. Not her boss.

  “But with Barbie it was more than that. She couldn’t seem to be happy on her own, although she desperately wanted to be. She started to worry all the time—about everything. Getting sick and not being able to care for Kelse
y. Kelsey getting sick. Me being in a car accident.”

  “Sounds like a serious case of depression.”

  Mark agreed. “I begged her to go see someone, even told her I’d go, too. But she said she didn’t want psychological help, because she wanted the chance to control her own mind. She said that she had the power to do it and knew if she gave up she’d never get herself back. She also worried about the side effects of medications. She’d already seen her doctor and he couldn’t find anything physically wrong with her, though he did suggest antidepressants. She wouldn’t take them.”

  “She sounds like a strong and determined woman.”

  With his head bent toward his hands, Mark glanced up at her and back down. “She was sleeping quite a bit and she knew that wasn’t good, so she started drinking caffeinated beverages. Said it made her feel good—gave her a pick-me-up. In a few months, she had a soda or cup of coffee by her side all the time. She was up to almost a twelve-pack of cola a day. Which eventually made her more jittery, and then she needed something to bring back the good feeling. That also brought about more unpredictable mood swings.”

  “A vicious cycle,” Meredith said, feeling a whole lot more than she wanted to, yet oddly welcoming the information. Knowing about Mark’s ex-wife brought her closer to the daughter Barbie had borne.

  “I tried to get her to exercise. The endorphins helped her mood swings and the physical activity calmed the jitters. But that lasted less than a month. She took up quilting, photography and Web design, all of which she began enthusiastically and ended in short order the first time she got frustrated.”

  “Is that why she left?” Meredith asked after a bit. “To try something else new?”

  “She left the day I found out the secret she’d been keeping from me and told her it had to stop immediately.”

  “She was having an affair?”

  “She was addicted to meth.”

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  “SHE CHOSE methamphetamines over you and Kelsey?”

  Mark, having fought for three years the pain and self-doubt associated with desertion, with not being enough, took comfort from Meredith’s shock at Barbie’s choice.

  “The drug is lethally addictive,” he said. “It’s a disease worse than cancer, spreading across this country in higher numbers than any other single illness. And Barbie was dissolving it in her first cup of coffee every morning and I didn’t even know it.” He stopped, remembered back to that final day. He’d been dreaming about Barbie, had gotten out of bed early to come and find her, to tell her how much he loved her, and he’d seen her take a little jewelry-sized plastic bag from the velvet pouch in which she kept the electric knife blades.

  “Until the day I saw her do it.”

  Meredith sat back in her chair, her eyes filled with compassion, concern, disbelief. The woman was always so…full of emotion. It was overwhelming. And compelling.

  “How long had she been using?”

  “She wouldn’t say.” She’d done nothing but lie that day and he’d been left wondering how many months, even years, before that had also been filled with lies. “But based on the chunks of money I found missing from a savings account of ours, I’d say it had been at least six months. At close to two thousand dollars every two weeks. You’d think I’d have noticed, wouldn’t you?”

  “From what I hear about meth, from the training we get at school, one of the reasons it’s so popular is because it’s hard to tell someone’s a user—until you see the yellowing skin or weight loss. Apparently other than having a lot of energy, people can act pretty normal under the influence.”

  Yeah, he had the facts, too. “It gives them the feeling of being in complete control, while the whole time it’s controlling them.”

  “It’s what we all want, isn’t it?” Meredith asked quietly, her expression sad. “To be in control.”

  Looking at her, Mark found understanding. He found himself unable to turn away. In the midst of this awful night he found a human compassion in her that made it all bearable—an acknowledgment of suffering and tragedy, yet also an affirmation of the worth of going on.

  Which was ridiculous considering she hadn’t said anything of the sort.

  “What do you want to control?” he asked, honestly curious. She seemed so intent on helping others take control. Mark. Kelsey. Susan. Her students. Their parents.

  Her hair spread over the chair behind her as she laid back her head. “Me,” she said, still watching him. “Just me.”

  “Control what you say?” Did she feel more shame about the recent upheaval at school than she’d let on? That would make a hell of lot more sense than her stalwart and unrelenting defense of her position.

  She shook her head. “Control what I feel.”

  Her eyes were troubled and he found himself watching her lips—wanting them to smile.

  “That’s not as hard as it might seem,” he said, glad that he had at least one answer for this woman who seemed to have them all. “Just use your head, take the time to think instead of react. Logic will never steer you wrong.”

  She did smile, then. With what appeared to be genuine humor. And perhaps a bit of pity mixed in. “Oh, Mark,” she said. “You don’t really believe that, do you? Deep down inside?”

  “Of course I do,” he answered without even needing to check deep down inside. This was something he knew.

  “The mind is a fabulous thing. But you were given a heart, too, for a very good reason. Your mind is your connection to the world around you. Your heart is your connection to your soul.”

  He wasn’t into the woo-woo stuff, but he certainly respected her right to be.

  “My wife listened to her heart and look where it got her.”

  “That’s not fair, Mark. Your wife used her head—we all do. We all have to. But she used it to make bad choices.”

  Maybe. He didn’t think so, though.

  “What I know is that Barbie was always an emotional person. Her sensitivity is what drew me to her to begin with. I grew up in a family that was undemonstrative at best. We love each other and express that love with Christmas cards and pictures sent once a year. When I first met Barbie and she wrapped her intensity around me, it was as if I’d finally come alive.”

  “Yes,” Meredith said. It seemed as if her entire body nodded in affirmation. “You moved from your head to your heart.”

  “And I got wrapped up in an uncontrollable mass that ate itself alive.” He wasn’t going to convince her. He had to speak, all the same. “I don’t trust feelings.” If they were ever going to find a way to work together peacefully, Meredith had to understand and accept this. “With Barbie the emotions took over her life, and while she was happy in the beginning, she was also upset a lot. She couldn’t ever just be.”

  “It doesn’t have to be that way.”

  He wasn’t finished. “And in my own case, I allowed my love for her to blind me to things my mind should have realized. I believed in her, made excuses for her. She was having an emotional breakdown right before my eyes, she wouldn’t listen to reason, and all I could do was watch our lives fall apart.”

  “You think if you’d loved her less you could have saved her?”

  “I think that I believe in logic, what I can see, what makes sense to my mind. I trust things that are proven to be true—and the people in whom I can see a steady track record of trustworthiness.”

  “You base trust solely on logic?”

  “That’s correct.” She was getting it. There was some satisfaction in that.

  “Trust comes from the heart.”

  He almost got frustrated with her again. She didn’t give up.

  Neither did he. He didn’t want to be frustrated with Meredith tonight. In the first place, she’d brought some peace to a turbulent evening. And in the second, if he gave up she’d leave and there’d be nowhere else for them to go, no common ground upon which they could meet. They’d have nothing more to say to each other. Ever. He didn’t really have a definition
for their relationship. It was more than boss/employee but not quite as intimate as friendship. But whatever it was, he didn’t want it to be over.

  She was almost family to the woman he intended to marry.

  “I don’t know how to listen to my heart,” he said.

  “You know. You just don’t realize that you know.”

  Which made perfect Meredith sense—and was nonsense to him.

  “You listen to your heart every time you do things for Kelsey that aren’t guided strictly by logic.”

  He thought for a minute. “I have a reason for everything I do for her.”

  “What about those butterfly jeans I saw her wearing tonight? Those weren’t a logical purchase. Last I heard, the sequins could come off in the wash.”

  He stared at her hard. “And last I heard, they don’t.”

  “Still, they cost twice as much as other jeans, which would have served the same purpose.”

  If the purpose had been to keep his daughter clothed and warm. “I can see where you’re going with this,” he said. “You know darned well that I gave in and bought those jeans so Kelsey would feel good about herself.”

  “And about you.”

  “In part, yeah, I guess.”

  “So it was about feeling, Mark. And that comes from the heart.”

  “I still made a conscious choice—weighing both sides, I chose to make a financially illogical purchase for other gain.”

  “And that’s a prime example of living fully,” she said, sitting forward as her voice took on new energy. “Barbie let her emotions rule her. You let yourself be ruled by logic. In an ideal life, neither one rules but you use both.”

  The woman was an idealist, pure and simple. And in an ideal life his love for Barbie would have been enough to guide him, not blind him.

  “So how do you explain the fact that as much as Barbie loved Kelsey, she didn’t even try to see her, let alone get partial custody of her?”

  “You had an uncontested divorce?”

  “Completely. She wanted out that badly. I gave her the things she wanted, her clothes, jewelry, half the bank account, and she left me the house, the child and most of the furniture.”